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I used to be so petrified of flying that I’d lock myself away in the airport loo half an hour before boarding and demolish a quarter bottle of neat Fundador.
Then I’d happily jet off to my destination full of carefree spirit, knowing that if the bottom fell out of the plane at 38,000 feet, I could ferry passengers and crew across the sky to safety using my own 40 per cent proof alcohol tank.
Even in those days, I was aware that flying was much safer than driving. So, indeed, are the masses of nervous people today who are so scared of air travel that they think a Ryanair loo and a hot flush are the same thing.
So why did I ever get into a flap over what is statistically the safest form of travel on earth (or a few thousand feet above it to be accurate)?
Global airline safety reports confirm there were a total of 90 commercial aeroplane accidents in 2013, just nine of which involved fatalities .
The 173 people killed on those doomed trips may seem a lot but when you look at the figures in the context of 32 million flights worldwide, the overall statistic of one accident per 300,000 flights and one fatality every three million trips proves conclusively that there is no safer form of transport.
If you are set on meeting St Peter at the Pearly Gates ASAP, then I can reveal that making the trip on two wheels is by far the best bet.
Yes, the riskiest way to travel anywhere is on a motorbike. Mile-for-mile, motorcycling is statistically 3,000 times more deadly than flying – and you are 100 times more likely to die travelling to Spain on four wheels than on a UK charter flight to or from the Costas.
Feel free to double the car-death figure if you include the loony Spanish fly boys who have brought a new skill to the art of driving. It’s called airborne overtaking and it’s soaring in popularity on my local autoroute.
I was approaching my fifties (in age, that is, not maximum driving speed) when I finally came to terms with the fear-of-flying nonsense. During a rare moment of airborne sobriety, my pickled brain came realised that Fundador-mentalism at ground level was much more likely to kill me than an extinct bird trying to board Ryanair ‘s smallest aircraft.
So when I now squeeze myself into one of Michael O’Leary’s tiny 3,000-seaters, I am reasonably relaxed, albeit still with the ability to panic whenever turbulence is around. Admit it, you laid-back veterans of sky travel – don’t you cast a quick look at the cabin crew’s faces whenever the engine sound changes or if the fasten seat-belt signs suddenly lights up?
I’m sure the aircraft staff are trained to remain calm at all times. But I defy them to keep a straight face if and when a desperate dodo sticks its beak into the starboard wing and the engine catches fire.
For all that, it’s great to be smugly dismissive of the occasional flyers who break into a round of applause when their holiday flight touches down. What’s coming next – a windbound for the driver?
For me, the most sobering thought is that my daughter and her other half run a major training centre for motorcycle riders in Manchester.
I need a drink. Anyone seen my hip flask?
PS. A thought on the new menace of terrorism in the air. In the wake of the 9/11 horror, airline passenger miles in the United States fell between 12% and 20% while road travel rocketed. By the time the panic ended and sky travel returned to normal, academics estimated that 1,595 extra lives had been lost. I never could figure out the Americans.

I’ve only once flown Ryanair and had no real complaints. But when, loo and behold, company boss Michael O’Leary began spouting about charging passengers for using his aircraft toilets in-flight, that was bladder-well not on.

As far as I was concerned, the Irish cheapo fly-boys were just cheapskate penny pinchers, at the same time screaming hypocritically that they are the cheapest and best airline around.

The problem is that O’Leary has got himself stuck uncomfortably between two stools (more Donna toilet humour). He’ll do anything for publicity – but in the process tends to ostracise a huge number of people, including passengers and staff.

Some travellers will no doubt be happy to save a few more quid by utilising the ‘‘standing seats’’ he plans to introduce in order to shoe-horn as many passengers as possible into short-haul flights.

Not me – I get backache after ten minutes shopping, so what price surviving a trip from Manchester to Murcia or Alicante on my feet?

Last summer O’Leary riled his own pilots with his ridiculous questioning of whether commercial airliners actually need two pilots on the flight deck.

“Really, you only need one pilot,’’ he ranted. ‘‘Let’s take out the second pilot. Let the bloody computer fly it.”

O’Leary’s logic is that flight attendants could do the job of the co-pilot, who he claimed was only there ‘‘to make sure the first fella doesn’t fall asleep and knock over one of the computer controls.”

He wants one of the cabin crew on all Ryanair flights taught to land a plane, with the pilot ringing the bell in an emergency and calling her in to take over. Following those comments, O’Leary quickly found himself on the receiving end from his own pilots, with Marseille-based Captain Morgan Fischer proposing that Ryanair ‘‘replace the chief executive with a probationary cabin-crew member currently earning about 13,200 euros net a year. “Ryanair would benefit by saving millions of euros in salary, benefits and stock options,” quipped Fischer

saw the funny side and joined in the banter, as did Ryanair spokesman Stephen McNamara, who said: “Michael thinks that cabin crew would make a far more attractive CEO than him so we are going to seriously look at the suggestion. “After all, if we can train cabin crew to land the plane, it should be no problem training them to do Michael’s job as well.”

They say that any publicity is good publicity – and that certainly seems to be Ryanair’s policy. But if they don’t soften their attitude towards their customers, I reckon they will pay heavily for it in due course.

A Cork-based friend of mine often travels from Cork to the UK with Ryanair because has no other option. And he reckons their attitude is not one of gratitude for his business but that THEY are doing HIM a favour in providing a service.

Another friend’s recent experience suggests that Ryanair should consider adopting the expression ‘The Customer is Always Wrong’ as their official slogan. My pal Andres Ballesteros, whose English is adequate but not perfect, paid on line for a return ticket from Liverpool to Alicante for his UK-based son – only to realise almost immediately that he had booked the flights back to front.

It was clearly a genuine mistake but Andres accepted he’d have to fork out another 20 euros or so to have the dates reversed. But when he phoned Ryanair’s call centre, a dismissive female operator told him haughtily: ‘‘It’s your mistake. You’ll just have to pay again’’.

Poor Andres was forced to rebook both flights, more than doubling the cost and adding a tasty bonus to O’Leary’s greed machine. World’s Most Popular Airline? World’s Least Caring Airline more likely.

As for all those O’Leary cost-cutting ideas, I’m not sure how serious he is – and whether any of them will actually be introduced rather than merely touted for publicity reasons. But don’t you find Ryanair’s endless purse-squeezing in order to increase profits a little worrying?

We have to believe that safety is as much a priority with O’Leary as it is with every other airline – and that he is not cutting corners in crucial areas like aircraft servicing.

However, I bet his constant stream of penny-pinching ideas has sewn just a tiny seed of doubt in the minds of some people. Me for one.

’Allo ’allo, a very good moaning to you all . . .

Until May 2011, I was a semi-retired Fleet Street staff sub-editor and reporter (news, sport and features) living in the Costa Blanca, where I was the self-styled Grumpy Old Gran of the local expat press. Now I'm back doing the lot full-time - as Editor of The Courier, a new weekly newspaper (www.thecourier.es). Despite my grumpy columns, I invariably have funny turns while I'm writing which will either make you laugh or cringe. Clever, corny or just a quirkyt sense of humour? That's for you to decide...

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Flying the flag for Spain on World Cup Final night with my pal John Moynihan